Not even two years after being reborn, Free Radical faces shut down under Embracer. Were working on a TS reboot.

VGC

-Free Radical was reformed two years ago by some former staff before first variation was bought out by Crytek, including David Doak.

-Embracer Group buys them

-Now, they face shutdown and layoffs per Embracer's order

-They were working on a TimeSplitters reboot, TS2 and Future Perfect can be bought on Xbox One/Series.

...

I wanted TimeSplitters to come back. I thought it was an opportune time to bring back old school FPS that weren't all twitch heavy "boomer shooters" (Doom, Quake), and seeing that Wolfenstein: TNO was kind of reminiscent of old-school Goldeneye and Perfect Dark, rather than the Romero/Carmack game.

But reading this? This is WHY I get on MS, or any corporation that mass consolidates. And now all studios under Embracer's wing are suffering because of their consolidation.

How I feel:

Pointing out one or two bad examples of companies suffering from consolidation does not consolidation is bad in general. Sometimes consolidation can be a good thing (Obsidian benefited from being bought by Microsoft due to extra funding that they never had before).

Microsoft should buy and save them.

@nintendoboy16: Let me see if I can follow this. Free Radical went into liquidation and was saved from a BUYOUT by Crytek in 2009. Then they were closed by Crytek 5yrs later and then reformed under Embracer Group, who are now shutting them again.

So far, that is correct, yeah?

And now you want to 💩 on acquisitions. Had it not been for acquisitions this dev would have died in 2009.

You might wanna thank Crytek and Embracer for trying to save the studio.

Man, TimeSplitters 2 on Gamecube was so awesome at the time, I didn't expect this to hear this bad news. This sucks on so many levels, I love that franchise and was exited to see it return. More importantly however, knowing that more hard working and talented developers could be out of a job is heart breaking. 2023 has been a shitty year for every major developers losing their jobs and layoffs is really getting out of control. Something must be done about this.

Damn, that sucks.

Can't say I'm surprised about this.

Love TS2. Sadly never played 3. Would prefer a TS4 over a reboot.

If you have an Xbox (One, Series), I'd get FP while you can. The campaign is a vast improvement over TS2. Too bad online won't work.

(And Gen Six, especially GCN version, console versions are getting pretty up there in price at used sales markets)

Most the Free Radical staff went to Deep Silver's Dambuster Studios, who did a nice job with the Dead Island 2 release earlier this year. Great game but probably got ignored by the masses 'cause most wouldn't know a quality game if it were rubbing its tits their face.

Anyhow, Embracer seems to some to be in a death spiral. I've seen some speculate this will likely lead to sell offs of IPs and studios. Curious on who will be buying what. Lot of great studios and IP under Embracer's wing.

The Embracer Group market cap is some like $3.43B USD, perhaps MS might wanna see about snatching them. Even something Sony could afford too. Worth noting, Free Radical is hardly a priority among all the many great studios they have.

*Flips table. Storms out*

The last game they released was in 2014.🤔

Again worth bringing up Deep Silver absorbed Free Radical into the created Dambuster Studios before reforming Free Radical as a separate studio.

For those spending time reading into this, I'd be curious if this means the whole staff is getting canned, or if many will be absorbed back into Dambuster. Perhaps the main casualty of this development is mainly the canceled Time Splitters project.

That's sad. I really wish we got a new TimeSplitters game.

Wouldn't wanna see a current day Timesplitters. Shame, but not really.

This is awful news.

I guess Mr Nintendo realised he made an oopsie for criticising acquisitions on this one judging by the lack of a response.

Just further proof that bigger companies buying up smaller companies is hell.

Why though? It's not like we are drowning in singleplayer FPS these days.

True, I actually had to look up Dambuster studios yesterday and saw that they were fine, a moment of confusion as I was sure the Free Radical studio were the ones aiding Crytek, created Homefront and are still working on Dead Island 2 content.

Huh? you do know that Free Radical went into administration in 2009 right? had it not been for Crytek buying them they would have been closed in 2009, and Embracer group tried to reform the team and obviously money was the issue for closing them.

Good. Some studios need to die. Timesplitters? 😂

Yeah let's pretend that Free Radical is the only case of mismanagement on Embracer's side and that the other closures and lay offs didn't happen.

They were all but dead until they were bought by Crytek. Let's not pretend that they would still be around. if they weren't bought.

If they were flourishing and then bought out and shuttered you'd have a point.

I vowed that I would never buy another Craptivision game because what they did to Bizarre Creations who weren't going into administration and bought them then closed them down.

So i'm against big corps buying smaller ones only to close them, but this case is different.

I see your point :)

And yeah Activision is literally one of the worst when it comes to studio management. But then it's easy for me to not buy their games as they are all pretty awful.

Now that quite a few of Bizarre Creations former devs work at Playground Games I hope they get to go back and finish in what they started in Blur 2.

For me that is the only good thing for me that would come out of MS buying Craptivision as like you I think they make garbage.

There's emulators.

Actually, thinking a bit more, I hope this is canceled. **** reboots. TimeSplitters was already awesome. Don't change it, make more of it.

@R4gn4r0k: No faith in this industry.

Yeah things is f*cked.

Will you be getting a PS5 pro or Switch 2 in this current industry?

@last_lap: Or I'm done arguing with you, let alone talk to you. You aren't the first on that list.

@R4gn4r0k: Switch 2 maybe for some exclusives.

Right on man, I think the same way ;)

Yup, Slightly mad got closed the moment it was bought by EA (under codemasters) and then AMG got closed because it got bought by ... I dunno what their name is, I'll call them talentless hacks, leeches.

So it's good to see developers make a return of sorts and continue working on what gamers love most.

Oh ok that's good to know. I will just say this, and that's if you don't want people to debate with you, maybe creating threads where debate can be had isn't a good idea for you,

If they ask real nice Uncle Phil may come to the rescue. lol :P

Politics has taught me not everyone is worth a debate. And for something like this, A LOT of politics is required for knowledge on why consolidation is bad overall.

The simple fact remains that they were about to close their doors in 2009 and be gone for good until they were acquired by Crytek which kept staff employed for more than a decade. So in this case the acquisition was a good thing.

You trying to use their unfortunate closer as points towards your narrative that acquisitions are bad is just plain wrong in this situation.

Enjoy the rest of your day, i'm out.

lol :P